nimbus
Americannoun
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nimbi,
plural
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nimbuses
plural
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Classical Mythology. a shining cloud sometimes surrounding a deity when on earth.
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a cloud, aura, atmosphere, etc., surrounding a person or thing.
The candidate was encompassed with a nimbus of fame.
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halo.
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the type of dense clouds or cloud mass with ragged edges, that yields rain or snow; a rain cloud.
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(initial capital letter) one of a series of polar-orbiting meteorological and environmental research satellites, the last of which Nimbus 7, launched 1978, was the first satellite designed to monitor atmospheric pollutants.
noun
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a dark grey rain-bearing cloud
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( in combination )
cumulonimbus clouds
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an emanation of light surrounding a saint or deity
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a representation of this emanation
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a surrounding aura or atmosphere
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nimbi
plural
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of nimbus
First recorded in 1600–10; from Latin, “rainstorm, rain cloud, thundercloud, cloud”; akin to Latin nebula and Greek nephélē, néphos “cloud,” and Slavic ( Polish ) niebo “sky, heaven”
Explanation
A nimbus is a glowing light that encircles someone or something. A shadowy figure standing in front of your car's headlights might have a nimbus around it. One kind of nimbus is the holy glow that's said to surround the body or head of a saint — a halo, in other words. Many religious works of art feature Christian saints, each with a radiant nimbus. There is a more scientific kind of nimbus as well, a large, gray rain cloud. In Latin, nimbus simply means "cloud," possibly connected to nebula, "mist, vapor, or fog."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Scheib’s staging, just Bayreuth’s 11th “Parsifal” production, paid homage to Wieland Wagner’s breakthrough 1951 minimalist sets with a circle of light that represented both the knights’ round table and a flying nimbus above the wasteland.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 26, 2023
Humanizing Bunny is in keeping with the show's general nimbus of empathy for all of its personalities, even its villains.
From Salon ● Jul. 6, 2022
Nan Kempner sat nearby and so, too, did the fashion plate and philanthropist Judith Peabody, crowned with her signature bouffant nimbus.
From New York Times ● Mar. 3, 2022
This is a kingdom in which the phrase artificial intelligence bathes “everything it was applied to with the nimbus of a bright future.”
From Washington Post ● Nov. 17, 2020
A nimbus of flames still flickered about the body.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
The smaller scale of this scene, and the nimbi given to Christ and the Apostles point to its having been the work of a special artist.
From Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely by Edward Conybeare
There were saints with glories or nimbi round their heads, Madonnas and kneeling Magi, the manger under a kind of penthouse, and similar subjects—subjects the highest that could be chosen.
From Hodge and His Masters by Richard Jefferies
There are various Bernini saints and seraphs in stucco-sculpture, astride of the tablets and door- tops, backing against their rusty machinery of coppery nimbi and egg-shaped cloudlets.
From Italian Hours by Henry James
The remaining effigies are depicted on the foreheads, hands and nimbi of the larger ones.
From Religion in Japan by George A. (George Augustus) Cobbold
The panels are round-headed, and the sky fills the space behind the figures with their gilded nimbi.
From The Shores of the Adriatic The Austrian Side, The Küstenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia by F. Hamilton (Frederick Hamilton) Jackson
Even when the music whips up complex, noisy nimbuses of competing motifs, the fast, finely judged changes within the dense activity are preparing you for variations on the weather.
From New York Times ● Aug. 22, 2022
White dogwood branches looked like clouds, the pale saucers of their blossoms arranged in white nimbuses.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 29, 2018
A mid-17th-century watercolor with gold and ink shows them with flaming nimbuses over their heads, rather than the round halos of Western art, and yet Mary is dressed in Western style.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 12, 2015
I had one last go at the buttons, though there weren't any left with nimbuses on them—the darker it got, the clearer that was.
From The Night of the Long Knives by Virgil Finlay
Their brandished spears made nimbuses over their heads; and this time their response was like the baying of hounds.
From Sacrifice by Stephen French Whitman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
